#first trial

I was led down some back corridor, the roars of the faeries awaiting my demise echoing off the hall like a twisted war cry. The stone was damp and muddy, the promise of the lair at the end of it. I was glad I had chosen the leather boots as the mud squelched even in the passageway, the grip of the sole helping just a bit from keeping me slamming into the floor due to a slip. 

Then the passage widened and opened to an arena, the crowds pushing at each other to see me, the victim of their bets as I saw flashes of gold and silver exchanging hands from the corner of my eye. The corner because I still stared solely at Amarantha, unwavering as I looked at her dressed in a pure white gown, so easy to stain.

 I was thrown in front of where Amarantha and Tamlin sat, their chairs elevated from the mud on a wooden platform. Between us the Wyrm den was exposed to the air, a maze of rank mud that stung at my eyes even as I only stood at the edge. The fervor of the faeries in the crowd had up-ed and Amarantha had to raise her arm to silence them as she stared back at me. The space silenced in a moment and I could hear the thump of my heart in my ears as I only slightly widened my stance. 

“Well, Feyre,” she said as she placed a possessive hand on Tamlin’s knee, the movement meant to enrage but my eyes only ever so slightly glanced down to Jurian’s, staring at me where it swiveled in its imprisonment ,“Your first task is here. Let us see just how strong that human determinations runs, shall we?” She leaned just ever so much forward as she continues, examining a nail as she did so, “I did take some liberty of learning some things about you, and I do think that this will appeal to your tastes.” 

She waved the hand she had been inspecting, “Take a look then.”

I smiled at her, letting my canines gleam for just a moment before I rushed towards the edge. I was afraid I was going to slip on the mud as I pushed onward, but my momentum carried me over the edge as I flew in open air for just a moment. Faeries gasped and shouted as I slammed into a mud covered wall, the slickness of it cushioning me. I dug my fingers into the walls to slow my descent before I handed slightly harshly in the maze. 

I was already half soaked in mud from my slide and I did not hesitate to scoop more of the rancid mud from the wall and floors to smear along any exposed parts of me. It soaked into the fabric quickly and I spread it across my face and down my neck, running my muddy fingers through my hair to clean the mess from my hands.

I looked up to see Amarantha peering down at me, frowning at my camouflage, “Rhysand told me you are a huntress. So, mortal, hunt.” She motion to a group of lesser fae, “Release it,” Amarantha called and the creaking sound of a gate being open set my feet moving down and away from the rumble of the creature that was released. 

I ran with no plan, just scanning the wall for a sliver of the opening that would have saved Feyre. The beast wasn’t behind me, not directly, but I felt its writhing in the air, knew it was with me in the open space as I threw myself around corners. My legs strained under me but they knew how to move against the mud, years of running in spring rains that formed quagmires in the woods making the push and slide familiar. 

Oh I was really hopeful I had taken off in the right direction, that I was not working against myself as I search and searched. My lungs burned and I tasted iron on my tongue as I ran, and while the taste was always concerning it kept the stench of mud from fully permeating my senses. Then I saw it, the crack that was so horrendously thin I feared I would get stuck as Feyre had.

I did not slow as I needed the force behind me to slam through the crack. I wedged myself between the mud, all but the edge of my shoulder and hip in between the tight walls as I wiggled and pushed against it. The entire time I had been running the faeries above were cheering, goating at the wyrm that was utterly lost in its own home as I had disappeared from its senses. There were boo’s as well, many of them calling me a coward for hiding as I finally broke free of the wall as I stretched and pulled. 

“Feyre, come out and play. All this hiding is ruining the fun of the sport.” Amarantha was talking on her platform and even though I was hidden from her sight I flipped her off as I walked through the den of the wyrm. Bones crunching underfoot as I found the open air of the arena again, I at the center of a steep walled mud pit. Taunts came from above of me now being the prey as though that isn’t what this game intended to make me as I scrounged about in the mud, forming a small pile of long ivory bones that held promise to my eye. 

I snapped a dozen bones over my knee a piece as I set the shattered ends facing the sky, deadly spikes for anything ascending from above. Then one knee became bruised and I switched to the other, and when that one bruised I broke it across my shins, under my foot, any way I could until I had a field of ivory stalagmites. A spiral of ivory death that would impale the wyrm on its long dead prey. Hopefully what or who ever the bones had come from would feel pride at being the things to kill the beast.

I cleared a small space that I hoped I could land in when it came time before I stood to admire my work, catching my breath. Movement caught my eye and I looked up, to a small platform that held the remaining 6 High Lords of Prythian, that held Rhysand with night shrouding his shoulders like a cape as he looked down at me. The other 5 were rigid as they stood next to him, but all watched me with apprehensive eyes and I resisted the urge to wave.

There was a pict looking down at me, cursing, “What are you doing? Useless mortal! Fight the damn thing instead of playing around!” The words sent a ripple of questions of my intentions through the crowd as I still looked up at Rhys.

“What is it doing?” A smaller female fae asked, near the pedestal of the high lords as she bent over the edge of the 

He slid his hands into his pockets as he spoke, “She is laying a trap, a huntress who has become invisible to their prey.” I smiled as purring pride settled in my chest.

I took 3 spare bones to stab my way into the mud, pulling myself up rung by rung as I made my bone ladder. I surveyed the trap from above, nearly artistic with the slanted white against filthy brown. I climbed back down my ladder and collected half a dozen bones to be used as my pivot points, securing them in my belt loops before I was out of the pit again, jogging to find my prey. I followed the sounds of the crowd toying with the wyrm, marking each turn I took with a bone.I followed the sound of the wyrm, the sloshing of mud, the crunch of bones of whatever the faeries above were feeding it, and came around a corner to view it. 

Seeing it for the first time made my stomach turn over itself even more so than the elevated stench. It was a giant earth worm with rows and rows of razor sharp teeth that were tearing through the flesh of whatever was in its maw. Now that I had confirmed where it was I slowly back down the path I had come from. I was several meters back from the bend when I took the last remaining shaft of bone I had saved, its edge the sharpest, and dragged it across the top of my bicep. Blood poured down to mix with the mud against my arms, red bright against the filthy brown. The crowd fell silent and I did not wait for Lucien to warn me as I took off toward my trap. 

I was not sprinting as I waited for it to burst from the wall and follow after me, this plan dependent on the wyrm not being able to stop itself as did the hunting for me. The sound of shattering mud and dirt had me only glancing over my shoulder for a second to check the distance as the open jaws of the wyrm approached behind me.

Then I was sprinting like my life depended on it, because it did, toward my trap. I skidded across the mud as I grabbed the juts of bone I had placed, pulling myself through the corners as the wrym slammed into them and was forced to slow down. My joints all groaned and I felt my ankle slipping under itself as I fought to stay up in the mud. 

My throat and nose were burning as I came to the straight away, the slight rise that marked the pit just before me as I dug my feet in deeper. The cheers of the faeries above me were changing as the wyrm appeared behind me, thrashing in its desperation for another meal. 

With a final prayer to whatever heavens that would accept me I was sailing through the air. I twisted in the air as I aimed for my section of safety, and slammed hard into the sludge. Bones in the mud crunched under my weight as the breath was knocked from me and I rolled, my brain rattled as I turned over and over. My arm twisted under me at a horrid angle as I felt small snaps reverberate up my arm. But I only had a few moments to run into the safety of a dark tunnel opening, away from the serrated teeth that came over the edge.

Everything shook as the wyrm lept into its den, dropping like a rock as it impaled itself on the bone spikes.  One moment it was writhing in the open air and the next a limp, oozing, body was in front of me, its mouth still open to swallow me. I still couldn’t breath as I laid back against the mud, all the times I fell from trees and knocked the wind out of myself did not compare to this as I was exhausted and tempted to weep at my victory as I finally regained the ability to draw breath. I turned over in the mud and noticed the wrong bends of my left hand, fingers not responding as they slanted at extra joints. My hand was mangled from when it had been slammed under me

I crawled my way from the tunnel entrance, wincing at the red of my blood that was dripping down my arm and into the mud as I pulled myself up my undisturbed bone ladder. My right hand was still holding the bone blade I had used to cut open my arm, making it a struggle to climb up with only one arm.

I pulled myself over the ledge, hooking my knee over the edge in aid before I was grinning up at where Amarantha sat. That white dress taunted me as she looked down over the edge of the trench.

“Well,” Amarantha said as smirked down “I suppose anyone could have done that.”

I changed my grip ever so slightly on the bone before I was taking a running start. A few steps as I hefted the bone above my shoulder and twisted, a shooting star of visceral. It reverberated as it sank into the mud at the edge of her feet, spattering and ruining that white lace. Gasps of spectators at the quivering bone as I turned to them, the ones who had bet on mine and Feyre’s death, who saw me as a little rat to feed to their snake.

“What?! Is this not what you were here for?” I screamed at them, raising my good arm to them, and they were silent as I raged. “You bet money on my life, but I am the one who won! This is a show for you, so tell me, are you not entertained? Did I give you a good enough performance?” I let it pour from me as blood dripped down my ruined finger tips. And there was a pause, a contemplating silence before the roar of the crowd was back, cheering. I wanted to collapse to my knees even as adrenaline raced through me, and I hung my head ever so slightly.

The blood dripping down my side was not from the slice to my bicep, the cut went under the river of iron coming from an impaled shard of bone through the top of my shoulder. I quickly looked away as the pain split through me, still dulled enough by the adrenaline that I did not black out on the spot.

“Such an eloquent speech, and I am sure you will be happy to know that a good deal of my court did lose their money, all but one.” She said it with a sigh like it was a domestic matter as she waved away a servant who had come up to here with a spread scroll with what I assumed was the bettings. Now she held the paper, examining it further, “Yes, most did bet you would die in the first minute, then five, but only one for victory.”

I knew who it was without having to look at him, hoping the silver I had added to the lining of his pocket was enough to get Amren some nice jewelry as my head swam. Maybe the pain was starting to overtake me.

“Take her away, I have grown tired of it.” Though her intonation was casual, her hand had tightened to white knuckle her arm rest as she made another cool command, “Rhysand, come here.”